Bracing for "Cyber 9/11"

As Al-CIA-da become the "good guys" (again), and I-CIA-SIS starts to crumble, and the latest boogeymen fail to strike a chord of panic in a boogeyman-weary public (remember the fearsome Khorasan Group, anyone?), it is safe to say that the old Global War on Terror (GWoT) paradigm is falling by the wayside. Lucky for the multi-trillion-dollar global terror-industrial complex, then, that the spiffy new _cyber_terror paradigm is waiting in the wings to take its place!

But just as the fading GWoT paradigm requires a steady stream of (perceived) threats in order to justify the bloated budgets of the US intelligence and security apparatus, so, too, does this new cyberterror paradigm require a constant flow of (perceived) online threats to justify the bloated budgets of the US cybersecurity forces. And just as in the GWoT, every “failure” of cyber-intelligence and every “inadvertent” proliferation of cyber-weaponry gives the newly-created US Cyber Command an excuse to expand its role and take even bolder action in its quest to “fight the net.”

The GWoT and all of its attendant ills have been built on the back of that "catalyzing event"— our "new Pearl Harbor," 9/11. So, naturally, the new cybersecurity establishment is waiting breathlessly for the "cyber 9/11" that will justify the complete crackdown and government takeover of the internet.

Unsurprisingly, the "cyber 9/11" meme stretches back almost to 9/11 itself. Back in 2003, even as the Pentagon was feverishly drafting its plans to “fight the net” as if it were "an enemy weapons system," Mike McConnell, the ex-director of the National Security Agency (NSA), was fearmongering over the possibility of a cyber attack "equivalent to the attack on the World Trade Center" if a new institution were not created to oversee cybersecurity. Since then, report after report has continued to use the horror of 9/11 as a way of fueling public hysteria over cyberterrorism.

Of course, many of you reading this editorial will already know the reason for the cyberterror frenzy: There is a pre-planned solution waiting in the wings to be revealed to the public after they have been prompted to respond to the next (virtual) false flag provocation. We don't have to speculate on this point. In 2008, Harvard law professor Lawrence Lessig told a technology conference that a cyber equivalent of the Constitution-destroying Patriot Act is on the shelf, ready to be rubber stamped into law. All it requires is a "cyber 9/11" to make such legislation politically viable.

In effect, the advisors, agents and experts in the cybersecurity industry are waiting for a spectacular cyberterror attack to justify a crackdown on the internet. Their plans include "identity management" schemes like fingerprinting for internet access, which would put an end to the free internet.

So if we know the psychopaths in power need a cyber 9/11 to spring their iPatriot Act on the internet, the obvious questions are: Would the US and its cronies really do something like this? And who would be blamed?

The first question is easy enough to answer: Yes. Yes, they would do this. Case in point: Stuxnet.

Stuxnet was a computer worm that the US and Israel jointly created to target Iran’s uranium enrichment facilities at Natanz. And as we have since learned, Stuxnet was only one part of a much larger cyberattack against Iran, jointly launched by the US and Israel and dubbed “NITRO ZEUS.” Although Stuxnet was intended to be the cyber equivalent of a precision-guided bomb, only capable of damaging the specific computer systems it was intended to target, it quickly escaped the computer systems at Natanz and spread across the internet. Oops. Hope that kind of cyberweaponry doesn't end up in the hands of one of our "enemies." That might lead to a cyber 9/11!

And wouldn't you know it? Other attempts to contain the tools in the Pentagon’s cyber-armory have been similarly unsuccessful.

In 2016 it was revealed that the NSA had not only found security vulnerabilities in numerous software and hardware products but, in direct contradiction to its earlier assurances, had failed to inform the vendors of these problems so they could properly secure their product. Instead, the NSA has been hoarding those exploits so it can gain backdoor access to the computer systems of targeted governments and individuals. As cybersecurity researchers warned at the time, this practice ultimately increases the likelihood that these vulnerabilities will be discovered by criminals, hackers and terrorists somewhere down the line. With the spread of the WannaCry ransomware of 2017, itself made possible by an exploit stolen from the NSA, these fears were realized.

Boy, sure hope this technology doesn't end up in the hands of the enemies! They might use it to inflict a Cyber Pearl Harbor attack on us!

And who are the enemies, exactly?

Why, the Russians, of course! It's the Russians! It's always the Russians! Did you stub your toe on a chair this morning? The Russians rearranged your furniture while you were sleeping! Only mismatched socks left in your sock drawer? That's because the Russians were rummaging through there last night! And if you get hacked? Well you better believe that's the Russians!

In fact, even if you don't get hacked, you can just say it was Russian hackers, and millions will believe you unquestioningly. Just ask Hillary and the DNC.

As we've already seen, the "intelligence reports" that have been released so far detailing Russian "election hacking" have been completely evidence-free exercises in political mendacity (but I repeat myself). In fact, we're not even taking the intelligence agencies' word for it, because they are taking the DNC's word for it. Never forget: The DNC refused to hand over its servers to the FBI for examination.

Now, to be fair, it is possible to imagine a universe without contradiction in which the Russians hacked into the DNC to expose their emails to the world. I mean, there's no evidence whatsoever that that's what happened, but it's not impossible to imagine it happening. However, as the meme-sphere has rightly pointed out, even if that did happen, it only means that the Russians rigged the election by exposing how the DNC rigged the election. Hmmm...seems the "I'm Still With Her" crowd haven't quite thought this one through.

Of course, this isn't about only the DNC hack or the Podesta spearphishing. Rather, this is a now-familiar cycle in which the #fakenews MSM identifies a hack, worm or cyberattack, immediately blames the Russians in ALL CAPS headlines on the front page, and buries the inevitable retraction in small print at the bottom of page B27 (or the internet equivalent thereof). If you think I'm joking, read MoonOfAlabama's excellent summary of how this has happened over and over and over and over and over again in the past year.

But as ludicrous as the neo-McCarthyite hysteria has become in recent months, perhaps it reached peak pitch last month in the Qatar crisis. Readers of my column about that crisis will remember how this latest spat in the Gulf (ostensibly) started: The Qatari Emir threw shade at the UAE, Bahrain, Egypt and the Saudis, accusing them of smearing the Qataris and their Muslim Brotherhood/Iranian/Hamas/Hezbollah allies and friends. Or at least that's what was reported in a curious little piece on the Qatari News Agency website—a piece that was yanked down within half an hour.

The Qataris' immediate explanation for this swiftly-retracted report? Hackers had broken in and planted the story on their site. Things being what they are, the FBI immediately turned around and blamed those dastardly Russian hackers, and the government's lapdog MSM dutifully regurgitated this unproven assertion without challenge.

The Russians? The Russians planted a fake news story on the QNA website in order to get the Saudis mad at the Qataris? Really?

No, not really. I know you're not going to believe this, but the self-same FBI that so confidently pointed the finger at Russia now believes with absolute confidence that it was in fact the UAE that hacked the QNA site. I mean, let's be clear: The feds are probably wrong about this assertion, too, but it just goes to show how seriously we should take their finger-pointing.

All this flipflopping raises the question of how the FBI—or the CIA, for that matter—determines culpability for a cyber attack in the first place. There are a number of methods for doing this, of course, from the ridiculously circular ("We attributed this type of attack to Group X in the past, so it must be Group X this time!") to the just plain ridiculous ("Look! Russian language and references to old KGB chiefs! Clearly those sneaky Russkies forgetting to hide their tracks!"). But then the CIA's secret tool for disguising their own hacks to look like it came from another country's government gets exposed, and we're back to credulously taking the word of the spooks as gospel when they say they never have and never would use such a deceptive tactic (pinky swear!).

In part, the unreliable intel points to the fundamental problem of attribution in the age of cyberterror. It's one thing to attribute a physical attack to an enemy. In the wake of a bombing or hijacking or other physical attack, there is at least some forensic evidence left behind, some money trail for investigators to follow. I mean, those records can be faked, too, of course, but at least there's something for outside investigators to scrutinize. But in the cyber sphere, there's nothing at all for anyone to examine. The only people who have any chance of figuring out what actually happened during a cyberattack are the ones with direct access to the server logs, and even those logs can be corrupted, faked or manipulated in various ways. In the end, it amounts to: "Trust the intelligence agencies! Have they ever lied to you?"

If I really have to answer that question for you, you're probably not a true Corbett Reporteer. If you do know that the intelligence agencies have lied to you, that they have created and spread cyberweapons in the past, that false flag attacks are used to blame political enemies, and that Russia is being set up to take the fall for the upcoming "Cyber 9/11," then you'll know what to think when you see the big New Pearl Harbor 2.0 unfolding before you.

But your friends and neighbors probably won't. Perhaps you can share some of this information with them before events unfold, so they'll be forewarned about what's coming.

This editorial is part of The Corbett Report's weekly subscriber newsletter. For full access to the newsletter, and to support The Corbett Report, please become a member.

Interesting that you failed to mention the recent Cyber attack on Ukraine or the last faux attack which encrypted hard drives in what looked like a ransomware attack but provided no means to save the data. (The ransom payments went nowhere and there was no way to unlock the data again.) This is a much bigger problem than just what we face here in the USA unfortunately. We're all global internet citizens after all. Not even Steemit is safe. :(

Excellent post, as always James. They have gamed the system so much now and they have so much control over the propaganda, especially through omission of real news, that they will simply steer the herd into once again thinking that big bad Russia did it (as you clearly point out) when they conduct the coming Cyber 9/11, and sadly, the people will lap it up once again at their own detriment, unless we properly wake them up to what is really going on. Steemit presents that unique opportunity for all of us to become truth telling citizen journalists of today. This is a link to a post I put together this morning on Facebook censorship and control, which coincides with the whole propaganda agenda and promotion of groups like Snopes and Factcheck. This shows the behemoth we are up against, fascism has arrived in the USA......and it is only going to get worse.

Big Brother Watching: Huge Compendium of Screenshots Highlight Facebook and Other Forms of Censorship In New Age of Internet Surveillance and Control

For anyone who knows how these people operate, they are transparent in their attempts to spoof cyber terrorism and blame the people of the world for it. But most people only know what the government tells them on TV through the bought and paid for news media. They are so brazen now with both online and offline false flags that I don't even bother trying to investigate any longer. I know for sure that every atrocity, real, hoaxed or false flagged, can be traced back to the deep state. It is in their interest to keep global tensions high so they can continue to control the global population. If world peace every arrives it will be in spite of global governance, not because of it, in spite of their dogmatic assurances to the contrary, that without world government we are all doomed to continuing war. War is democide, nothing more, nothing less - the slaughter of the global masses on the premise of rivalry between nation states. Any nation that resists the impulse to go to war, is baited incessantly, infiltrated, and ultimately forced into war by the intelligence operations of the deep state which is determined to undermine every sovereign government not under its control. This is exactly what happened in Syria, and the same playbook has guided every internal revolution over the last century or more, starting with the American, French and Russian revolutions, and every insurgency from Vietnam to the South American revolutionary movements and more recently, the Arab Spring. Yet most people have no clue and assume that the narrative of spontaneous internal revolutions by native groups within the population, is correct as continually spouted by the news media.

I liked most of what you wrote here, except for ranging into Hillary Clinton territory, that seemed to add nothing for a global audience, it's just local political mud slinging.
I'm from the UK and we already have tight control on the filtered internet here, and a government hell bent in making sure revenue goes to local MSM that they can control, and logging of all internet history. Its not a secret, it was in the manifesto!

I'm so tired of trying to wake people up to these truths, sadly I fear most will suffer greatly for their ignorance. Hopefully they'll look to those of us who were awake and prepared for answers and not the corrupt power structure that shafted them.
However I doubt that'll be the case because they'll buy the Govt/MSM BS hook, line and sinker as always.
Some folks just don't want to here the truth.
You're work is always brilliantly researched and eloquently written.
Thank you.

Agreed, seems that few enough of us can be found. I came across a woman in her late seventies who was beginning to see something is not right and has begun digging. We got on like a house on fire. In my own circle life is a bit lonely.

Upvoted and Resteemed.
Thanks for "telling it, like it is." Unfortunately, only a small percentage of the people who we would even consider "awake" know enough about the complexities of the internet to be completely up to speed on this new threat you are exposing here. This is truly concerning. Even though many people have caught onto 9/11 Truth and the fact that the MSM and govt. are a bunch of criminals and serial liars, many of those same people will also buy this next round of B.S. because they don't know enough about the internet. When it comes to "cyber-warfare" they'll go right back to the same behavior patterns of, "Oh, that's complex - so we'll let the government handle that." SMH. This is not good. X(

I've worked in IT for 20 years. After the prerequisite false flag cyber attack, the technical execution of real Internet censorship is so complex and the backlash so completely overwhelming that this is why it hasn't been done yet. They can't figure it out. So they just keep talking about it. For once they pull that trigger and it fails miserably, it will come back to bite them in the ass much worse than the failed attempts at gun confiscation or the fake news meme. The magnitude of this will result in exposing them and their plans even faster than had they done nothing at all.

Of course, if it does happen, I think it more likely to be blamed on North Korea or perhaps China now that we've stepped up the bs tensions there.